The Magic of the Night.

The season of long nights gives us a little more time to enjoy night’s fruits. Night, as we see it, was created by God along with the day from light says the Book of Genesis. But what was there before light if not a long night of abiding silence and darkness? It’s therefore more ancient than the day. And for the same reason, it transports us spiritually to the beginning of the Creation.

Night is essential to maintain the biological rhythm of all creatures. But for us human beings, who are naturally diurnal, it has an added significance. Its gifts of silence, tranquillity, darkness, the moon and a sky lit with stars, are a balm for not only the tired body, but also for the restless mind, the sad heart and the troubled soul. Night is a great companion, and a good listener. It allows one to talk one’s heart out without even speaking.

If day reveals the world in bright colours, night brings alive the heavens. If day keeps us rooted to the ground, night hearkens the spirit to rise above the mundane. We have different ways of achieving that. Poets do it by communion with their muse, thinkers delve into deep thought, artists let their imagination fly, astronomers explore the deep mysteries of the universe and others dream.

Night’s beauty and charm have been part of folklore.
“I often think that the night is more alive and more richly coloured than the day,” said Vincent Van Gogh.
His sentiments are immortalised in his painting, The Starry Night, which captures night’s eternal beauty. The night had cast such a spell on the painter that he created the masterpiece during daytime from memory.


Darkness, night’s daughter, is usually associated with gloom and ignorance. But it has its own force and character. Light is fickle and shallow but darkness is steadfast. And it has depth. “O radiant Dark/ O darkly fostered ray/ Thou hast a joy too deep for shallow Day,” wrote George Elliot in The Spanish Gypsy.

Light is a veneer, concealing more than it reveals. It stands for differentiation. That this difference is only illusory, is revealed by darkness. On the one hand darkness emphasises the essential oneness of everything. On the other hand it lays bare the true nature of everything. Light is beguiling in that we see things more through visual perception. But darkness, by sharpening all our perceptions — sensory and extrasensory — allows us to form a more holistic picture of everything.

Used as a metaphor, darkness has a valuable lesson. In the bright sunshine of life everything looks good and every person a friend. Only when darkness descends we begin to realise what is what and who is who, bringing us closer to the truth. Darkness guides us to tap our inner light. In addition, darkness reveals stars. And what are they if not harbingers of hope and windows to new horizons?

The certainty of night’s arrival at the end of the day points to the eternal truth that all things we perceive must come to pass. This realisation is painful if we focus on pleasures but the thought is comforting when we turn our gaze to life’s sorrows and suffering. It brings home the wisdom that they are the happiest who neither get too attached to life’s good things nor are weighed down by adversity.

Night is also a metaphor for death though it is live and dynamic. And so should be death — neither inert nor conclusive but only a throbbing interregnum. Our end, therefore, must be viewed as the womb from which a new beginning is born. That’s what the poet must have meant when he said,
“In my end is my beginning.”